On July 26, 1884, Dunedin residents got their first newspaper, the West Hillsborough Times. The paper was four pages long with local news taking up the first and last pages. The two middle pages were filled with general reading material purchased from a firm in Atlanta. By 1892, the paper was sold to a new owner who moved it to St. Petersburg and changed its name. Dunedin, then, went forty years without a local newspaper.
On February 7, 1924, Frank E. Joy established the Dunedin Times to serve Dunedin, as well as its surrounding farms and villages. For the annual subscription cost of $2.00, readers could enjoy their local news along with short stories, cartoons, photographs, and much more. The paper was sold to the Waterson family in 1944, and under the Watersons, it saw its most successful years. The family upgraded the printing equipment used to produce the paper, expanded each issue to twenty-four pages, and increased circulation ten-fold. The Dunedin Times was reliably printed until 1966. After that, its printing was sporadic until it ceased publication entirely around 2000.
The Dunedin Historical Museum possesses the only complete Dunedin Times collection from the years 1924 to 1966, and also keeps a less-complete collection of the paper running from the subsequent years until its end. We, together with the Dunedin Public Library, know that digitizing this paper will serve as an invaluable project for the entire community. We hope you will browse through its pages, discover Dunedin‘s history, and form a close connection with our past. Get to know those who developed our great city, search for family members, and explore the changes that time has allowed.
We wish to specially thank The Dunedin Public Library Foundation for their generous support of this project. Without them, it would not have been possible. We would also like to thank Dunedin Museum Inc., Rotary Club of Dunedin, Rotary Club of Dunedin North, and the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. Together, we are bringing the history of Dunedin to life for our community to discover, learn from, and enjoy.
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